The drug discovery process is currently undergoing a fundamental revolution as it embraces `functional genomics`, that is, high throughput genome- or gene-based biology. This approach is rapidly superseding earlier approaches based on `positional cloning`. A phenotype, that is a biological function or genetic disease, would be identified and this would then be tracked back to the responsible gene, based on its genetic map position.
Functional genomics relies heavily on the various tools of bioinformatics to identify gene sequences of potential interest from the many molecular biology databases now available. There is a continuing need to identify and characterise further genes and their related polypeptides/proteins, as targets for drug discovery.
While the pathway for the biosynthesis of saturated fatty acids is similar in prokaryotes and eukaryotes, the organization of the biosynthetic apparatus is very different. Vertebrates and yeast possess fatty acid synthases (FASs) in which all of the enzymatic activities are encoded on one or two polypeptide chains, respectively, and the acyl carrier protein (ACP) is an integral part of the complex. In contrast, in most bacterial FASs each of the reactions are catalyzed by distinct monofunctional enzymes and the ACP is a discrete protein. There therefore is considerable potential for selective inhibition of the bacterial systems by broad spectrum antibacterial agents.